Pregnancy and Asthma

Study Shows Stressful Pregnancy Increases Asthma Risk

Prenatal yoga has never sounded better. A new study by doctors at Boston's famed Brigham and Women's Hospital has discovered a link between stressful pregnancies and a child's risk of developing asthma. According to the research, a mama-to-be's stress level can influence the baby's immune system during the pregnancy, making the baby more likely to develop asthma after birth.

The study, which followed lower-income women from several major cities, found that umbilical cells of babies born to stressed moms had different reactions to stimulants than those of babies born to moms who found their pregnancies to be stress-free. Doctors say the next step is to develop programs to reduce the tension women feel throughout pregnancy, such as exercise programs, nutritional guidance, and birthing prep.

i'm so glad i found this post. my best friend is pregnant and she is a constant stress ball. i'm always telling her she needs to relax more but she never listens. she figures if she just eats right then the baby will be fine. such a stubborn girl! so i just passed this article along to her and she said, "okay i'll try a yoga class at my gym this weekend." i also told her husband he needs to take her away on the weekends more often to decompress from city life (they live in NYC). thx for this great post.
cheers
n

5 years

I didn't really do anything different in pregnancy to handle stress than I do any other day. Having said that, with 3 kids, I can see how this could hold true, yet not. My oldest, my son, has what's being classed as seasonal asthma where it's really only affected or triggered when he gets a bad chest cold. I would say in some ways that his pregnancy was stressful being the 1st and all the worries that go along with it. But having said that, each of my pregnancies got more stressful simply because they're consecutive and I had more on my plate each time we decided to have another because they're was always 1 or 2 others to take care of. It makes it very interesting though because they're also linking disposable diaper use to asthma as well as male impotence, and he's the one that we used more disposable on than either of our girls because the cloth diaper standards changed between our son and daughters, making it easier to use cloth! Wonder if the stress and disposables really did play a role in his asthma?!